Reviews

Wow! What I expected to be a medicare classic sentimental a girl-from-the-ghetto story, turned up to be an extraordinary experience of incredibly acted, beautifully complex, unconventionally artistic movie. If this is the director's first feature movie, I am genuinely looking for next one.

The story is about a 15-year-old Muslim girl called Dounia and her black friend Maimouna that both grow up in a poor migrant superb of Paris.They have both different characters and family situation, but they both share their insecurities and hopes with each other openly and you can feel the strength of their influence on each other even when it seems like they paths split.

They are both clueless teenage girls, that feel like they deserve more in life than what they were given by their parents or society. And it's Dounia that is more willing to risk and fight for that better future. The relationship dynamic is fascinating to watch and very well acted. There is also interesting and potentially romantic (?) relationship between Dounia and a guy who is a dancer, and whose artistic aspirations in dancing is confusing her (and her own value system). And what's more, her friend Maimonua doesn't seem to be so impressed with him as Dounia, so she acts very ambiguously toward him and even sees him as weak, even though she is not sure that what she sees as a weakness is actually a weakness after all. This split between her contradictory emotions is amazingly well acted (in my opinion by a rising star) young actress Oulaya Amamra.

The ghetto, lack of meaning, lack of guidance and respected adult authorities, lack of social (economic) opportunities and feeling of being an alien in someone else's society is the true antagonist of the story.

It drives Dounia (and Maimonua follows her in admiration) to make naive and bad choices, but at the same time you feel something very authentic and even admirable in her drive to find the most accessible way out of her frustrating situation. As there seems to be no adult that understands her feelings, she relies on her best friend Maimonua feedback and evaluation of her. But they both can only know, what they can learn from their surrounding culture and significant adults around themselves - who also seem clueless and desperate, so why should Dounia trust them at all? She has an immature drunk mother and no father. So when she drops out of school and start selling drugs, the world looks like it belongs to her (and her best friend), unable to see inevitable consequences of the path she puts herself and their friendship in.

And as the movie progress, you ask yourself how much she can get away with and will she finally learn harsh life lessons on her own or will the unusual relationship with the dancer help her to see beyond distorted values she desperately tries to believe in?

It is a matter of taste, I guess, but a Golden globe nomination, 10 minutes standing ovation and subsequent win at Cannes festival is, in my opinion, well deserved. Besides I read that the "self-thought" director Houda Benyamina herself grew up in the type of suburb she captures in this movie, so you can't accuse her of over-dramatization or stereotyping.

I've seen A Man called Ove (2016) and Toni Erdmann (2016) which are both nominated for 2017 Oscars for foreign movies, but I think Divines deserves it more. I personally, put Divines to my Top 2016 list of movies.

Highly recommend.

I was hesitant to see the movie, although I marked it for my 2016 must watch list some time ago. There were things that discouraged me to prioritize this movie before all the other I have seen from 2016 so far - like its Disney poster, its genre of "from the bottom to the top" (always a danger to fall into clichés), and lack of exposure and reviews.

I am glad I finally watched it today, as it successfully managed to avoid clichés and 2D story-line so often seen in this genre and clichés of over-romanticizing of poverty and Africa in general. I think that the main reason this movie didn't succeed much in USA or Europe on commercial merit is that people didn't really get through those clichés yet. That, and perhaps the African accent that to some western ears may sound "too stupid and slow", so people often correlate that with intelligence of people who speak it.

For me, it was refreshing to see finally a good movie set out in Africa and even more so, I applaud the director's decision to shoot it in actual Katwe. It added up on the scale of authenticity and I bet it helped to facilitate actors performance as well- which is also on very high level. I especially liked Lupita Nyong'o's portrayal of the mother of Phiona - the main hero of the story. But surprisingly all child actors are really good too, even though most of them (I heard) never stood before camera (or maybe exactly because of that).

As I mentioned the story is classical "from the bottom to the top" genre, but what sets this movie apart from its stereotype genre is willingness to explore characters depth, and not only that of the protagonist (Phiona), but movie managed also to depict other characters with depth and I'd say there are three protagonists in this movie: Phiona (chess prodigy), her mother, and her coach Robert Katende. Story explores their limitations and strength, with nuance, character and intelligence. There are some beautiful scenes where characters above realize their own limitations and as they try to find the way to support each other's strength despite their embarrassment. So mainly this emotional intelligence and nuance set the movie apart from clichés of its genre.

Also there are many subtle references to class prejudices in Uganda (which, I think, people from every country can relate to). So bonus point for that too. We saw not just poor slums of Uganda - the dirt, poverty and tacit acceptance of it, we also saw middle class Uganda and upper rich class of Western-like style of Uganda. It was all too familiar to watch the power relations withing Uganda, although with different colour and context.

All in all, a story that deserved to be told. I thought it's impossible to make a movie about chess, but this movie kind of made me thinking about learning it! And all in all, a movie that deserves to be watched and acknowledged.I definitely liked it a lot and even managed to shed a tear here and there! I also liked the final credits where you could see the actors standing besides the real people they portrayed in the movie.

It's hard to review a movie that take upon a very important historical subject that actually happened. For all those reasons, this is a great movie to watch as it is thought-provoking and dramatic.

Unfortunately not due to the quality of the movie itself.

My first feeling while watching the movie was how TV-like, i.e. not cinematic it all felt. The use of colour, the use of music which I found not very placed and very stereotypical, the lack of introduction of characters and as someone already mentioned, lack of exploring their depth. At times if felt like the movie tried to be all things at once - and that it failed to be integrated within its cinematography, storytelling and direction.

Acting was really good from all main actors, Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson and Andrew Scott. However, it all fell flat as there was literally no investigation of their depth. I thought, especially the judge deserved more time on the screen to investigate his motivations and background. But Rachel Weisz character and Timoty Spall's Irving character deserved especially more reveal in terms of their driving force behind their life choices and values. I would be especially eager to see what drove people like Irving to deny such an obvious historical fact as holocaust is.

For all those reasons, I'd say it's a mediocre movie but I'd still recommend it for pure historical reference and subject it deals with.

I'd really love to see the same subject made by different directors and writers and producers, as it deserved better.

First of all, this is a very well made documentary and you can notice that from the first shot. Directors Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani have done a really great job in putting the pieces of ivory trade together in a very comprehensible narrative that exposes the whole circle of the game.

We get to know the whole infrastructure behind it, from local killers working for local dealers, to foreign dealers and (usually Chinese) wealthy buyers. The cinematography of it is breathtaking as we are taken to visit the natural habitat of Elephants in South East Africa and meet the people who try to protect them against all odds and overwhelmingly lack of resources. We get to know the enthusiastic wildlife conservationists working in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and get to know their motivation for fighting poachers and the whole illegal network. We get to know the man behind Wildleaks - an organization that leak the information about that network and we go undercover with them to meetings with dealers in China.

The whole documentary feels like a first class thriller with chase footage of the poachers and undercover agents risking their lives to expose the wide network, except this one is a reality.

Although one small minus for me was that not enough (in my opinion) was said about how complex,intelligent and emotional animals Elephants are. I mean they can paint, they visit spots where their members were killed or died and mourn the dead bones together, which we could consider as a form of ritual. They are able to use tools (although on lower level than chimps). Together with dolphins and apes they exhibit forms of self-recognition and they have an excellent memory.

Although elephants also cause some problems to people, especially in Asia where urbanization and human population claimed a lot of their natural habitats, the massive genocide of elephants for their ivory is a sign of something much larger than just ivory black market. It's a sign of expansion of human destructive relationship to our natural environment. We don't respect the nature as is documented by the global warming, and we don't give a sh*t about animals as they're mostly seen only as a necessary decoration of ever-shrinking wild nature.

I think this is a symbol of our addiction to power. We want to prove ourselves that we are the Gods and rulers of this planet and due to that addiction we are about to see some nasty results of that urge. Like there will be no elephants on the planet in few decades to come and more and more wild life territories will be sacrificed, so we will only know about the diversity of life from the history books. What kind of psychological effect will that have on future generation we can only speculate.

I watched the movie without knowing anything about the real case of Olga Hepnarova and so I didn't know what to expect.

I must say the movie succeeded in creating the atmosphere of depression, social detachment and schizophrenia and portrayed Olga Hapnerova as a very complex and complicated being, and especially the second half of the movie is very chilly and revealing in terms of the personality and especially that part is very well played by Michalina Olszanska.

It is definitely worth watching although, you can't get rid of the feeling that certain things in terms of filmmaking didn't fit quite well into the whole picture.

The movie is black and white, and almost completely without music. That is a very good idea, because it mimics the inner world of Olga and translate it to the audience. Black and white movies can really do the job as with Sindler list or The Turin horse, provided that other elements fit into the mosaic. There were long and still takes which sometimes focused solely on Olga's face, which I found bit odd because sometimes maybe it would be much better to shift to camera focus on people around following her gaze and how she look at the world rather than trying to decipher that from her face. For example in We Need To Talk About Kevin (which has almost identical story- just different context) Lynne Ramsay done excellent job in doing just that by fragmenting narrative and focusing camera on miniscule details of what is significant for the character psyche. Another thing is that the movie felt a bit disintegrated at times. For people that don't know anything about the real case, it's hard to decipher what happened or where are we in the story exactly. It felt kind arrogant to the viewers as it expected that we all know everything about the story already and that the movie works only as a visual media to translate the story fact to fact in the shortest possible time.

Having said all that, this is a powerful movie with great performance at times by the lead actress and with some deep psychological nuances of the character, who you can't help but sympathize with and/or understand on some level. I would definitely add to the WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN category where the main character -although antihero and "evil" of the story, has a very complex reasons and personality. Which is great, because in today's society we need more stories and movies that could explain seemingly random or evil acts in such a complex and socially interconnected way. In fact if you know anything about psychology of "evil", you know that it's almost always a reflection of how those murderers were treated either by society or their parents, caregivers or peers. Here I agree with a previous review that, movie as such would benefit much more from more scenes of the family interactions or history (for example in Flashback maybe).

Overall, this is very powerful psychological drama that certainly delivers the chill and a lot to think about. So definitely worth watching.

This is an excellent documentary for masses that are either not that familiar with the realities of climate change or don't understand what is at stake or how it works and why.

This was probably the goal of the producers (among them Leonardo Di Caprio or Michael Scorsese) to appeal to a general audience. I must admit I watched it also for that reason. And I see no problem with that! I spare my comment on Leo Di Caprio's activism and work in that field for later as I know many argue that his activism is only his PR and so on...

But, I think the point here is the message of this movie, not the messenger. Visually it is excellent. Leo Di Caprio and all the crew takes us on all the places directly affected by the climate change and show us how the poorest countries on Earth suffer the most of the effects of climate change. They interview not only politicians, leaders and, the pope - but mostly scientists and local people from the most damaged areas. They connect how the oil industry and current energy giants like Exxon, Tepco and so on. lobby in US congress to buy their support and tacit consent, but not dwell too much on it - as if to shift the focus to nature with its stunning cinematography and rather appeal to people on that level, while showing how climate change already f*cked up Poles, forests, and coastal areas and how it's gonna f*ck up a many more areas and shape the politics and economy of the near future.

I also liked that despite his celebrity status Leo Di Caprio (the main interviewer) doesn't fall into false hopes and promises but keeps his mind open and skeptic. Because I think the goal of the movie is to show the reality of the long-term effect and not to wallow too much in short-term steps - like Paris 2015 conference.

Lastly, about Leo Di Caprio. You don't need to like him to enjoy this movie. And you can say whatever you want about his activism, the fact is that on the top of making this documentary, he drives an electric car, and a bike, uses his Facebook almost solely on promoting climate change actions and even spent his time during acceptance of his Oscar for The Revenant to speak about native Americans and climate change. So I don't think this is all just a stunt and PR! Who said that just because you are famous and rich you can't genuinely care and express your activism or can't worry about the planet and the civilization? I think this type of thinking is just another side of the same coin, people who criticize "celebrities" for not speaking out, and people who criticize "celebrities" once they do speak up, are in my opinion much more influenced by the celebrity culture than they think or can admit. It's no win situation when you put people in a mental box.

All in all,you can find some great piece of activism and cinematography in the documentary and I highly recommend for anyone who is ...a human being.

And if you are interested in deeper insights into how this climate change crisis intertwines with politics, corruption, war and economy, go and watch The Shock Doctrine, or have a look on the Zeigeist movie trilogy and The Zeitgeist movement.

Amazing film-making. Superb acting. Strong psychological meaning After I finished watching this movie I clearly got the title. Indeed, I think the title is turned into the audience, as we clearly need to talk about Kevin's of our age. Especially with all the shooting tragedies in US now-days.

There is very little that I can say about the way the movie was made. Camera work and its focus, colors setting, fragmentary narrative - all worked to produce a truly powerful cinematic experience that sucks you in the story like very few movies I've seen so far.

The story itself, although fragmented through the eyes of the mother played by Tilda Swinton (one of the best acting performance I've seen), uncovers the relationship with her son Kevin. It is from the beginning very uncomfortable and detached.

In order to fully get this film I think, you need to know about the psychological dimension of the movie. Especially you need to know about The theory of attachment. Once you read about it and understand it, you will get this movie on a whole new level! Indeed, with all the mass shootings in US and percentage of psychopathy in the society this movie could be a thesis on how it all works. Yet from the cinematic perspective I love that the director is not judging anyone - only exploring honestly and objectively the whole process of how it got from A to Z. Rarely honest approach.

Very intelligent movie and superb acting! 10/10